


Airport

by IanMuyrray



Series: Fersali [8]
Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 17:37:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15054353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IanMuyrray/pseuds/IanMuyrray
Summary: Marsali delivers some life changing news at an airport terminal





	Airport

His wife was leaving on a work trip in a few hours. Two weeks in New York City, the longest they will be apart since they got together. 

Fergus lay in bed, counting the cracks and dimples in his ceiling, avoiding the glare of packed suitcases in the corner. His hands rested on his bare chest, thumbs twiddling over his rib cage. He had hardly slept at all.

Marsali lay asleep with her bare back to him, the white sheet draped low over her hips in the grey morning light. Her side rose and fell with each steady breath.

Fergus reached out and flicked the white sheet up to cover her bottom completely.

He rolled onto his side, rested his head in his hand. She hadn’t pulled her hair back before sleep like she often did, and her blonde hair lay in an unruly mess on her pillow, her shoulders, even across her face. Carefully, he reached over and brushed hair back from her forehead, tucked it behind an ear. His touch drifted from her neck to her shoulder, her bicep, elbow, ribs, waist, taking in her silhouette.

She sighed in her sleep, startling him, and his hand lifted, hovering above her for a moment, worried his touch would cause her to disappear.

With a light chuckle, he lowered his hand, cupped her hip. She was solid under his fingers, the feel of her reassuring.

They had to leave for the airport in an hour. She was sleeping in. He was of half a mind to let her sleep well past when they needed to leave.

 _Mon Dieu,_ he would miss her while she was away.

He shifted toward her then, pressing his face between her shoulder blades, brushed a palm against her stomach and pulled her back to him. He breathed her in.

She stirred, but she did not wake.

“ _Ma femme_ ,” he whispered against her skin. “ _Reveillez-vous._ ” He placed a small kiss on her spine.

“ _Non,_ ” came a small, sleepy, whiny voice, causing Fergus to laugh.

He kissed her back again before he sat up and patted her bottom, climbing off the mattress. “Wakey wakey eggs and bakey,” he teased.

She peeked over her shoulder at him with one open blue eye as he stood and threw a t-shirt over his head. “You’re going to make me eggs and bacon if I get up?”

“ _Non,_ but we can get McDonald’s breakfast if you’d like. Time to get up, you don’t want to miss your flight.”

Fergus left the car running as he loaded the trunk with Marsali’s bags. She appeared on the concrete stoop, a steaming mug of tea in her hands, and leaned on the cast-iron railing, yawning. “I don’t want to go,” she said. She looked beautiful in the early sunrise, clad in a large blue sweater with her hair aglow in the light of sunrise and gas streetlights.

“I don’t want you to go, either,” he replied, careful not to look directly at her. He closed the trunk with a slam. “I think that’s everything. Lock up behind you?”

The drive to the airport was quiet and uneventful, the city streets nearly empty in the early morning hours. Her flight would depart just as rush hour would begin, and Fergus knew he’d be battling intersection after intersection of gridlock on his way home. For now, though, the drive was peaceful. Marsali was still sleepy, leaning against his shoulder, fading in and out of consciousness. Fergus was left alone with his thoughts as he navigated.

Two weeks. An ocean. Different cities. Different time zones. New people for her. Same people for him. All things that would span the gap between their goodbye this morning and their hello when her plane from New York touched down again.

Fergus had never been to New York—it would be an experience Marsali would have without him, instead sharing it with her corporate colleagues and fellow reporters. He worried momentarily about whether Marsali would keep her promise to phone him at the end of her day, but then she snored and nuzzled against his shoulder, assuaging his fears.

No one who snuggled him like that would be too distracted to call him. Right?

His silver wedding band caught in a flash of light, gleaming up at him. She should have the opportunity to make friends in New York, he chided himself, without worrying about an overprotective husband at home. She’ll be fine.

Fergus pulled into the drop off at the airport, slowing the car to a stop. He shook his sleeping wife off his shoulder with a peck to her forehead and a whispered singsong of “ _ma femme_.”

He unloaded her luggage, bringing it around to the curb for her convenience as she stepped out of the car. She smiled gratefully at him, and he had a thought that she looked as worried as he felt.

He flashed her a grin, holding out his arms for a hug. “Well, this is it.”

She sighed, running a hand down her stomach. “Fergus,” she murmured. “I’m going to miss you a lot.” She blinked quickly, and he saw the glint of tears.

“What is it?” he asked, stepping towards her. Cars honked and beeped at him to hurry along, but he ignored them.

She looked down at her sneakers on the concrete, shifting unevenly, then met his gaze. Her eyes were bluer and clearer than he had ever seen them before.

“Marsali?”

“I’m pregnant.”

Fergus’ chest inflated, and the world erratically spun under him. He shifted on his own feet, feeling attached to a million helium balloons, as if he might lift off at any moment.

“You’re serious?”

She gripped the handle of her roller suitcase tight, her knuckles white.

Cars continued to honk at them, and Fergus became aware that he had not pulled the car over far enough to let others through. But he didn’t care.

He skipped up to her, caught her in his arms, whirled her around. He felt tears prick his eyes, his cheeks sore from his grinning. He laughed, a sound starting from his roots and floating through the metal roof of the airport, up to the sky.

He showered her face with kisses, curses, prayers, gratitude. His hands eagerly found her stomach, searching for any physical indication of a child.

They hadn’t planned for this, but it was perfect.

A car honked, a jet engine blared. His heart sank. She was leaving. Marsali cupped Fergus’ face in her hands and brought him in for a kiss.

She pressed his forehead to hers. “I will be fine traveling, dove, and you will be fine here. Start searching for things to fill a nursery if you need something to do while I am away.”

His heart inflated once more at the prospect of researching the safest cribs and car seats, of perusing baby sections in stores for stuffed animals and fluffy blankets. Looking through mobiles and rocking chairs, paint colors and children’s books to read. They had an extra bedroom, currently used as an oversized closet. A nursery is much better, and his mind spun with ways to decorate and arrange it for the child. Their child.

“Fergus?”

His attention snapped back to his wife, whose drowsiness had by now evaporated completely.

“Of course, _ma femme._ ” He lifted her hands and kissed them.

She laughed as the cars’ honking grew more aggressive. “I think it’s time for you to go. Sorry to spring that on ye. Couldna find an okay time to say it but I wanted to tell ye in person before I left.” She grinned, sheepishly, up at him.

He grabbed her and kissed her deeply. “Two weeks will go by quickly, _ma chèrie_. And then when you are home we can begin nesting.” He smirked at her, kissed her hands again.

She laughed once more, pulling away. “Ye must leave before ye cause a riot to break out at this airport. You silly Frenchman.”

“Safe flight, _mon amour._ ” He kissed her again, pulled her tight, breathed her in, memorizing the sensation of her pressed against his body. “See you in two weeks.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was prompted by a Fanfic Trope Mash Up post on Tumblr  
> http://muykonos.tumblr.com/post/175083695643/fanfiction-trope-mash-up


End file.
